Ice dam risk in St. Albans, WV
Will your roof get ice dams in St. Albans, WV?
4.0 dam days a winter
Low risk. On an ordinary house in St. Albans, conditions for an ice dam come on about 4.0 days in a normal winter, mostly in January and February.
St. Albans averages 11 inches of snow a year and about 19 days with snow on the ground. Most of it comes and goes within a few days. The conditions that make a dam need all three at once: snow, cold at the eave and heat above it.
What your attic does to that number in St. Albans
| Attic | Dam days | Risk |
|---|---|---|
| Air-sealed and well insulated | 2.9 | Low |
| Typical, some insulation, not air-sealed | 4.0 | Low |
| Older or poorly insulated, warm attic | 5.3 | Moderate |
The attic matters less in St. Albans than in colder towns: there are only 1.1 days a winter between a typical attic and a sealed one.
Preventing ice dams on a St. Albans roof
- Check the gutters before the first snow and clear them, so meltwater has somewhere to go. If you see icicles thicker than a finger along the eave after a storm, that is the early sign to look at the attic.
Snowy places are not always the worst: why snowfall misleads.
St. Albans winter, month by month
| Month | Snow (in) | Days on ground | Dam days |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 4.1 | 7.0 | 1.7 |
| February | 2.7 | 5.4 | 1.2 |
| March | 2.6 | 2.5 | 0.3 |
| November | 0.0 | 0.6 | 0.1 |
| December | 1.3 | 3.4 | 0.7 |
St. Albans next to nearby towns
St. Albans ranks 8 of 13 West Virginia cities here for ice-dam days, behind Weirton at 10.4 days.
- South Charleston, WV 6 mi, 3.8 days
- Charleston, WV 10 mi, 3.8 days
- Huntington, WV 33 mi, 1.4 days
- Ashland, KY 45 mi, 1.5 days
- Ironton, OH 48 mi, 1.5 days
Where these numbers come from
NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals from Winfield Locks, 11.6 miles from St. Albans. A dam day is a day with snow on the roof and freezing at the eave while heat or sun melts the snow above it. This describes a normal winter, not this one.
- Snow-on-the-ground counts come from a second, nearby station, because the closest one does not record them.